Activity Question

Due Date: Friday, October 15th, 2021

Activity Five Week Nine

Directions

Before starting this assignment, you are expected to have reviewed the lecture slides and your

lecture notes. The purpose of this activity is to give you exposure to skills and information that

will enhance your understanding of concepts related to theories of status organizing processes

and expectation states.

After completing the reviewing the slides, your notes, watching the supplementary videos, and

reading the below overview, please answer the five questions below.

Once you have completed this assignment, please submit it by 11:59 PM.

Specifications

● Must be at least 2.5 pages total ● Number your responses ● Include your responses only ● Double-spaced ● 12 pt. Times New Roman ● MS Word document ● Submit to Canvas dropbox for Activity 5

I. Assignment Expectation states theory explains why social hierarchies emerge in small, task-oriented groups. Both known information and implicit, often unconscious, assumptions, based on status characteristics, result in the evaluations of an individual’s ability to contribute to the task at hand. Evaluations are based on (1) specific skills and abilities relevant to the task and (2) characteristics associated with perceived superiority. When the combination is favorable, group members have a positive view of a person’s ability to contribute to the task. When the combination is unfavorable, group members have a negative view of a person’s ability to contribute to the task. This results in a hierarchy where one’s position corresponds to the level of esteem and influence within the group.

1. Describe a situation when you were a member of a goal-oriented small group (e.g., class, sports team, school club, community organization, work group, etc.). How was the group hierarchically organized? Considering the aggregate assumption, which status characteristics were valued higher than others? What combinations of status characteristics were most favorable? Why (hint: how did evaluations of these characteristics shape group members’ views of a person’s ability to contribute to the group’s goals)?

According to the salience assumption, for any attribute to affect performance expectations, it must be socially significant. A status characteristic is salient if it either differentiates actors or is relevant to the task. The same characteristic (e.g., having a college degree) can advantage an actor in one setting (with a less educated group), have no impact in another (in a group where all have university degrees), and disadvantage the actor in a third setting (with a more educated group). Thus, no status characteristic advantages or disadvantages an actor in all settings. Whether the status beliefs culturally available to actors shape performance expectations in any actual setting depends on the structure of the local setting itself.

2. Describe a situation (or situations) where, in a collectively oriented group, a diffuse status characteristic is salient because it differentiates group members.

a. In a setting where the status characteristic is an advantage.

b. In a setting where the status characteristic has no impact.

c. In a setting where the status characteristic is a disadvantage.

3. Describe a situation (or situations) where, in a task oriented group, a specific status characteristic is salient because it is relevant to the task at hand.

a. In a setting where the status characteristic is an advantage.

b. In a setting where the status characteristic has no impact.

c. In a setting where the status characteristic is a disadvantage.

The shared focus of group members on the group’s goal (i.e., the collective orientation) generates a pressure to anticipate the relative quality of each member’s contribution to completing the task in order to decide how to act. When members of the group, for whatever reason, anticipate that a specific individual will make more valuable contributions, they will likely defer more to this individual and give them more opportunities to participate. These implicit, often unconscious, anticipations of the relative quality of individual members’ future performance. Expectation states theory argues that when a socially valued reward is distributed unequally among members of a group, the actors will infer performance expectations from their reward differences. In other words, the unequal possession of rewards generates status distinctions that are considered legitimate by those in the setting. By creating performance expectations, the unequal rewards appear to be “deserved” and, thus, bring respect, deference, and influence. In this way, just as status characteristics can create status hierarchies, the differential distribution of rewards, can actually create a status hierarchy among actors or modify positions in an existing hierarchy.

4. Describe a situation where someone was given a socially valued reward that resulted in the assumption that these rewards corresponded to esteem and influence within the group. What was the reward? Why was it valued? In what ways did this reward/these rewards generate status distinctions that were considered legitimate by those in the setting? In what ways did receiving this reward/these rewards result in higher performance expectations?

Behavior interchange patterns shape performance expectations most powerfully among those actors in a group who are equals in both their external status characteristics and their reward levels. When actors differ in status characteristics, the differentiated performance expectations created by the status characteristics shape the actors’ verbal and nonverbal assertiveness. Consequently, differences in status characteristics shape behavioral interchange patterns. For example, a common assumption is that people who speak more confidently about things with which they have more experience. Salient status characteristics induce actors to assume that the more assertive actor is more competent at the task than the more deferential actor, creating differential performance expectations for them. Behavioral interchange patterns are the means by which expectation states theory accounts for the development structures in homogeneous groups.

5. Describe a situation where, in a homogeneous group, someone displayed behavior resulting in higher performance expectations. Did their subsequent performance confirm or disconfirm these assumptions? Did their level of esteem and influence within the group change as a result? If so, what status characteristics became most salient, giving someone else higher esteem and influence in the group? If not, why?